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Over Half of Norway Car Sales Are Now Electric (reuters.com)
The Norwegian Road Federation (NRF) said on Monday that almost 60 percent of all new cars sold in the country last month were fully electric, "a global record as the country seeks to end fossil-fueled vehicles sales by 2025," reports Reuters. From the report: Exempting battery engines from taxes imposed on diesel and petrol cars has upended Norway's auto market, elevating brands like Tesla and Nissan, with its Leaf model, while hurting sales of Toyota, Daimler and others. In 2018, Norway's fully electric car sales rose to a record 31.2 percent market share from 20.8 percent in 2017, far ahead of any other nation, and buyers had to wait as producers struggled to keep up with demand.
The surge of electric cars to a 58.4 percent market share in March came as Tesla ramped up delivery of its mid-sized Model 3, which retails from 442,000 crowns ($51,400), while Audi began deliveries of its 652,000-crowns e-tron sports utility vehicle. The sales figures consolidate Norway's global lead in electric car sales per capita, part of an attempt by Western Europe's biggest producer of oil and gas to transform to a greener economy.
The surge of electric cars to a 58.4 percent market share in March came as Tesla ramped up delivery of its mid-sized Model 3, which retails from 442,000 crowns ($51,400), while Audi began deliveries of its 652,000-crowns e-tron sports utility vehicle. The sales figures consolidate Norway's global lead in electric car sales per capita, part of an attempt by Western Europe's biggest producer of oil and gas to transform to a greener economy.
Oh, a bit of digging says that they are almost entirely hydroelectric production, so this is an actual real reduction in fossil fuel dependance. Awesome!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Very little of this is significant and barely even true. I live there. Most Norwegian live in areas where is just goes under freezing for 3-4 months at most, heavy snow is uncommon, cleared very effectively and few people commute very far at all.
They are a success because of tax. Petrol cars have a 100% tax, electric have zero, so a Telsa cost a similar amount to a medium sized car, a Leaf was cheaper than a well equipped hatchback. Plus they travel free on the toll roads and Norwegians have a lot of money they need to try to find a way of spending. In fact it was so successful the government had significant issues with the hole in the budget caused by the lack of income from reduced taxable car sales.
Large EV sales in norway are due to subsidies to the tune of the equivalent of USD~10-30000 pr. car:
* Goods (including cars) normally carry a 25% VAT. BEVs are exempted. (Easily worth USD 10-20000)
* Non BEV cars additionally carry taxes calculated from emissions and weight. Additional taxes for cars tend to range from the USD equivalent of USD 2000 to many tens of thousands for large performance cars.
* There are a lot of toll roads in norway. Many car drivers can spend the equivalent of USD 3000 annually on tolls. BEVs are expempted from tolls. (This benefit will likely be reduced shortly, but a 50% saving has been assured)
* Many cities have free parking for BEVs (Also likely to be a reduced benefit going forward)
For usability: Most roads are limited to 80km/h and most drivers do not drive excessively long distances. 15000 km annually is the average.
The parts of norway where very long driving distances are common (Northern Norway) BEV penetration is very low.
Winter range of BEVs can drop a bit on the coldest days but norway is mostly temperate. Subzero temperatures usually only occur 30-60 days pr. year in most populated areaes. (Though it varies greatly, but so does BEV adoption)
Note that the high numbers of EV sales in march is significantly due to that Tesla delivered ~5000 cars in. Tesla tends to deliver cars towards the end of the quarter, and Q1 saw the first availability of model 3 which had a large pent up demand, so do not expect next month to repeat this number.
They have this problem as well with fossil fueled cars, that is why many cars in colder climates (e.g. Scandiavian countries, Canada) are equipped with a block heater. My Volvo has one, plug it into mains an hour or two before you leave and a 550 Watt element in the engine block (replaces a freeze plug) will bring the coolant 20-30 degrees centigrade above ambient temperature. When plugged into a charger, many electric cars will do the same, they will pre-heat the batteries and heat up the car's interior when it's cold, to save battery consumption while on the move. Conversely, when it is hot summer, they will turn on the a/c.
Omnis basim vester nobis compete sunt.